Tempered
by NeonAnything
Summary: An unlikely meeting in the cenotaph between a silver-haired-nin and a blonde kunoichi. A purely KakaSaku story.


**Tempered**

Refusing to go quietly, the setting sun shines a last defiant radiance into the summer sky, painting the whole of Konoha with vivid hues of orange and pink.

This is where he finds her, in the cenotaph, crouched silently in front of the gravestone. Her long golden hair appeared almost ephemeral with the rest of the afternoon glow. Kakashi had to squint to make out her silhouette as he approached her slumped form.

The blonde kunoichi's back straightens just a little, visibly aware yet uneager to acknowledge his presence.

Taking careful cue, the copy-nin approaches no closer, just a feet away and lazily stuffs both his hands in his pockets. For what felt like a long suspended moment, he remains there, his tall form unmoving, observing, as she traces the engraved name on the stone.

It was _deathly _quiet in the open fields of the Konoha cemetery. The cheers and chatter of villagers far too distant to disrupt the audible stillness. Only the soft ruffling of trees were distinct enough to be heard.

Kakashi tilts his head to look above the fiery afternoon sky, searching for some kind of strength to draw from. Coming up empty, he drops his head down, releasing a long sigh, that came out sounding more like a hasty groan than he meant it to be.

"Ino.." he finally calls out breaking the silence.

The blonde kunoichi sits there, unresponsive to the sound of her own name. Her back now completely dimmed by the long stretched shadow of his tall form

He takes a step closer, renewing his effort to get her attention.

"_Protect the king_..that's what Asuma-sensei told Shikamaru." she trails off, lost in her own thoughts. Her voice resonating clear and sharp against the silent air around them.

It had been 4 years since Asuma died, and Kakashi couldn't help but admire the unwavering and unmatched dedication of the remaining team 10 to his last words — the overarching purpose to the continuing fight. _Shikamaru's personal banner._

But protecting _the king_ — _Konoha's future_, is most of the time impossible, Kakashi thought. It was hard enough to fight for the _now_, when war and hatred always seem to unravel what they have, at its very seams. The young are never spared, but instead forced to take the mantle early with blood on their hands— to protect themselves, their family, their friends. He knew this from painful experience, at a too tender an age.

Asuma was always the idealist, he mused.

_Everything is going to be alright_. It wasn't a real promise but Kakashi wanted to give his own team a brief cushion from the thrashing instead.

"Even after death, Asuma-sensei manage to pull us together and stir us in a greater direction." The kunoichi continues on, snapping him from his own thoughts. She raises her lowered head and lazily cocks it to one side, resting on slumped shoulders as her long blonde hair swoops along with it. She's staring far into the horizon, where the reddening sky filtered out faint god-rays.

"Sometimes I wonder what he'd be telling us now. If there were other things he'd want to say, for times like _this_." She makes a blasé gesture in the hair with her right hand. "When the war is over, and there's nothing left but.._peace._"

The blonde turns her head slightly to his direction revealing a sliver of her face to the sun where his tall shadow failed to obscure. "I wonder what he'd be telling_ you._"

Kakashi had to admit he's wandered about that more than a few times. Most especially now, as he stands in front of his friend's final resting place. He knows Asuma is right there with them, as a third yet silent party.

"His opinion wouldn't have mattered. Not on this one." He fixes Ino with a serious gaze, unyielding but honest. The blonde, visibly put off by the copy-nins trademark detached tone finally rises from her feet to face the taller jounin.

"How could you do it?" She finally asks—her question hanging in the air like vapor kept afloat by thick heat. It was rhetorical, because they both knew no answer would satisfy.

"It just happened." Kakashi holds her gaze with his lone uncovered eye, and answers with even conviction.

It was the truth.

Yet he wished there were better words. Ones that didn't sound so utterly juvenile and frivolous.

"_It just happened?_ You're a grown man and that's the best you can come up with."

"If you wanted a detailed account, Ino — I'm afraid I'm not the right person for it." He answers back with a shrug and just the right touch of sarcasm. She is stubborn and Kakashi knew better than to follow her down her emotional rabbit hole.

With a long pause, and what looked to be a spark of last fight leaving her glassy eyes, Ino slumps defeatedly on the engraved structure behind her. There were no follow-up retort, much to his surprise. Folding her leg up and bracing her feet at the edge of her late sensei's gravestone for support, the kunoichi finally took her own turn on a deep heaving sigh. It was clear to the copy-nin that she had hope to rally an impenetrable defense from Asuma, leading her to take her stand here by his very gravestone.

With the afternoon sun now warm on her face where her back had been, the blonde slowly grazes a hand over her right cheek. The slight prickle on it, finally capturing her attention.

Kakashi takes notice of the red faint impression of a small palm and dainty set of fingers _still_ visible on the kunoichi's face. It had been close to an hour since the confrontation, and Kakashi couldn't help but muse if Sakura dealt Ino a chakra-infused strike.

The blonde kunoichi had found out about their relationship by sheer accident, exposing what have been a perfectly kept year-old secret. Something much like _fate_ really, that led Ino to do a non-routine surveillance of the Konoha perimeter using her mind transfer technique.

The copy-nin and his pink haired accomplice were always careful about their private moments. They were shinobis, but even hard-trained shinobis fall vulnerable to human complacency. Afterall, they were spies, not neurotics.

Shock, betrayal, anger. Ino couldn't decide how to feel so she went with all three. Shock as a natural reaction to see something decidedly intimate shared by two people she'd least expect. Betrayal for being lied to by her closest friend, just when she thought her and Sakura grew closer than ever after the war. Anger at the silver haired jounin who had clearly taken advantage of his position of trust.

_This is wrong. It's perverse. How could they?_ The blonde kunoichi stood in front of the village gate, emotions running high, her mind overflowing with questions.

She saw the pair finally walk past the Konoha gates. Maintaining a calculated distance from each other as they walk — Sakura always a few paces ahead eager to get that report done, and Kakashi languidly lagging behind as always. Not even a hair out of place - _It was all meant to be familiar,_ she deduced. This was a shinobi village and their ruse mocked the intelligence of everyone in it.

She intercepts the two of them, with Sakura giving her a questioning but cheery smile. _More lies_.

"I know about the two of you." She delivers flat and cold, and watches as the smile on her pink-haired friend faltered completely.

"I don't know what you're—"

"Don't lie to me Sakura." Ino interrupts her. She redirects her glare at the silver haired jounin behind her. His uncovered eye betraying nothing about the him. Did he even hear her?

It didn't matter as she _made sure_ he heard the next words that came out of her mouth. Which without meaning to, was also loud enough to be heard by the people in the vicinity.

It was an insult meant to hurt him even when it bore no real accusation. It didn't however stop the whispers from bystanders. The culmination of a rumor beginning. Ino's acerbic words and quick tongue were equally matched by the force and speed of Sakura's hand connecting to the the blonde kunoichi's face.

"You have no right to judge us. Don't you ever." The pink haired kunoichi punctuated, emotion brimming wet in her jade eyes. Ino stood there astonished for a second, before the painful swell of both Sakura's strike and her own wounded pride spurred her to step back and run away.

She ran and found herself right in front of Asuma's resting place. The setting sun's horizon, from her view in the cenotaph, looked almost like a painfully compressed scorching crimson. _Very suitable_, she thought.

Ino sensed his chakra signature the moment he stepped into the grounds, feeling a little hurt and aggravated that her pink-haired friend chose to not make an effort at all. Maybe_ a little awkward too_, as she much prefers to deal with Sakura instead. She hardly ever spoke with the silver-haired jounin. Even after he had bravely led team 10 in avenging their late-sensei, there was still very little she knew about the man.

The only thing she knows is that Hatake Kakash never fails to live up to his reputation-the famous copy-ninja. Besting Asuma as a honed killing machine, just enough to live instead of die

The sound of her name from his lips was much too soft and barely audible through her deafening thoughts.

She meant to come to this place to seek refuge. To demarcate the stark contrast of heroic sacrifice against selfish things like_ lust_ and illicit affairs.

But her mind took purchase instead of a plainer reality—_Everyone here is dead. _

She would have laughed at the simplicity of her thoughts if not for the contradicting realization enveloping her mind and body. The stillness and quiet of the cenotaph grounds reminding her that everything here is unchangeable. _Final._

_Life is now_, she reminds herself, and struggles to remember when she had forgotten such a simple fact.

The exchange of words between the blonde and silver-haired jounin eventually gave way to the setting sun— _always fiery at its last breath_, but finally dwindling into dark shades of purple and blue. The distant light of village streets pepper around the dark cenotaph grounds.

"We can't choose who we love." Kakashi finally tells her, almost apologetically that Ino felt like her heart broke.

Without the enveloping tint of anger, she can see clearly through her own opal eyes that the silver-haired nin and his pink-haired kunoichi fought the internal war themselves already.

_Finding_ love is easy especially during war and destruction._ Claiming_ it for your own—even with the looming fear of staining it with your own bloodied hands , Ino thought, _well that takes courage._

The blonde kunoichi and the older jounin slowly make their way back to the village. He doesn't ask her for an apology, which honestly, made it even harder for her to express. But it was there, like the calming cool wind finally filtering through the night. They both just knew.

* * *

**A/N:**

_Hope you guys like it! I wanted to give Ino some love in the KakaSaku fandom. Not that she hasn't been getting any, but I was really interested in portraying her character just a little differently, with more depth than the usual gossipy blonde. I feel like a lot of times, she's written as someone who'd easily condone a KakaSaku relationship just because it's juicy sex topic. I wanted to do a different take at how she'd react. Hope you digggg it. I'm still really new at doing this ha ha…. be kind. _

_Really the fun is trying to play with people's feelings and making them think it's another sad character death story. :)_


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